Chapter 3

That night, the oil lamp in the gatehouse is like a bean.

Jiang Ye flips through the yellowed "Five-Animal Boxing" page by page with his withered fingers.

His movements are slow, but his eyes are getting brighter and brighter.

When the last page is closed, he sits quietly for a moment, a flash of amazement appearing deep in his cloudy eyes.

"This Five-Animal Boxing is not simple..."

Although Liu Qingshi said this boxing technique focuses on health preservation and has no lethality.

But with Jiang Ye's superb comprehension, he can better appreciate the extraordinary nature of this boxing technique.

This Five-Animal Boxing imitates the postures and spirits of five kinds of birds and beasts: tiger, deer, bear, ape, and bird, focusing on intent rather than force.

The tiger form is fierce, the deer form is expansive, the bear form is steady, the ape form is agile, and the bird form is elegant.

"This boxing technique is definitely more profound than the Mountain-Crushing Fist."

Jiang Ye slowly puts down the booklet, and by the dim lamplight, in the narrow gatehouse, he follows the "bear form" stance he remembers most clearly, sinking his waist and sitting his hips, his arms held out in a void.

His movements still carry the stiffness of an old man, and his joints emit faint, light sounds.

Even though it was only a moment of standing in the stance, Jiang Ye feels as if his body has repeated this action thousands of times.

But when his intent sinks into the imagery of "steady as a mountain, force rising from the ground"—

"Five-Animal Boxing proficiency +3!"

An attribute panel appears in Jiang Ye's mind.

Name: Jiang Ye

Lifespan: 75 years

Fate: Ladder to Divinity【Effect 1: Superb Comprehension】

Wu Gong Mastered: Five-Animal Boxing【Entry, 3/100】

Jiang Ye is slightly stunned.

This system panel makes him feel more intuitively how terrifying his superb comprehension is.

Ordinary disciples take at least a month to master boxing, and he mastered it just by standing in a stance?!

"One day equivalent to one year..."

Jiang Ye suppresses the wild joy in his heart, his gaze sweeping over the "tiger form" diagram.

His intent moves with it, imagining a fierce tiger crouching on a rock, shoulders slightly hunched, setting up a "tiger form" stance.

"Five-Animal Boxing proficiency +3!"

About an hour later.

Wu Gong Mastered: Five-Animal Boxing【Entry, 57/100】

Jiang Ye slowly stops the last "bird form" stance, his chest rising and falling slightly, and the white breath exhaled from his mouth condenses into wisps of fleeting mist in the cold room.

He stands quietly in place, lowering his eyes to feel.

He has already practiced all five stances of the Five-Animal Boxing several times.

At this moment, he only feels as if the tendons and bones in his body have been heated by a fire, and even his shoulders and neck are faintly hot.

"If I continue practicing, I'm afraid I will enter the Force Realm."

Jiang Ye feels the burning heat in his body, and his cloudy eyes brighten.

Having guarded the gate of the martial arts academy for twenty years, he has seen plenty of things even if he hasn't practiced them himself.

He knows that the burning heat in his body is actually tempering his Qi and blood.

The first barrier to laying the foundation for the martial path is tempering force!

Once a martial practitioner tempers their Qi and blood to a certain degree, they can knock on the barrier and cultivate into Bright Force.

Once Bright Force is generated, strength, speed, and resistance to impact will open up a qualitative gap with ordinary people.

Only then can one be considered to have truly entered the hall, leaving the category of "being able to fight better than ordinary people."

Most of the inner-court disciples of the Qingshi Wu Gong Academy are at this level.

"Hiss... why is my head a bit dizzy?"

Jiang Ye is about to continue practicing.

A sudden wave of dizziness, like a cold hammer, slams hard into the back of his head.

At the same time, his empty stomach experiences violent spasms, and an indescribable emptiness and weakness surge through his limbs and bones instantly.

The body that was just burning hot like a furnace sees its heat rapidly recede, replaced by a chill and weakness seeping from the depths of his bone marrow.

Hungry!

The hunger that seems to want to swallow him whole floods over him like a tide.

Jiang Ye's body sways, and he staggers to hold onto the corner of the table, barely managing not to collapse.

Oh no!

His heart sinks, and he realizes instantly.

His body cannot keep up.

【Superb Comprehension】 allows him to comprehend boxing intent and temper Qi and blood at a terrifying speed.

But this seventy-year-old aging body, with its life candle maintained only by meager food, simply cannot withstand such violent burning of Qi and blood and consumption of energy!

Fortunately, there are still the mung bean cakes Su Yan gave him on the table, and Jiang Ye swallows the remaining two cakes like a starving person.

A moment later, a faint warmth slowly spreads from his stomach to his cold limbs.

He slowly slides to the floor, leaning against the cold table leg, closes his eyes, and waits for his body to slowly recover from this sudden "catastrophe."

After a long while, the heart-palpitating dizziness and weakness finally ease slightly.

Jiang Ye lifts his hand with difficulty, wipes the cold sweat from his face, his lips cracked.

He looks at the "Five-Animal Boxing" on the table, then looks down at his own withered and trembling hands.

The heat in his eyes has long since cooled, replaced by a more calm understanding.

"Food must be eaten one bite at a time, and the road must be walked one step at a time..."

Jiang Ye mutters to himself, his voice hoarse.

Blood-Strengthening Soup!

He remembers Liu Qingshi's arrangement; he must go to get it on time tomorrow.

After a while, Jiang Ye slowly stands up; although still a bit weak, his basic ability to move has recovered.

"I'll go to the bathroom and then go to sleep."

Jiang Ye shakes his dizzy head, pushes the door open, and walks out.

For an old man of his age, if he doesn't go to the bathroom before sleep, he will have to get up several times at night.

Not long after walking out of the room, he rounds a cluster of dwarf bamboo with fallen leaves.

Jiang Ye smells a refreshing, faint fragrance drifting from the side.

His footsteps pause slightly, and he turns his head to look.

Under the clear moonlight, a tall and graceful figure is walking along another corridor, neither fast nor slow.

The person is wearing a fitted black martial arts uniform, her black hair simply tied behind her head, revealing an oval face as white as jade.

Her eyebrows and eyes are extremely beautiful, but they seem to be covered with a thin layer of frost, exuding a coldness that keeps strangers away.

Most eye-catching are those straight and slender legs, with a rhythm in her gait, silent and soundless, clearly showing a very solid foundation.

This woman is none other than Liu Qingshi's only daughter, Liu Yiyi.

"Miss."

Jiang Ye bows slightly.

Hearing the sound, Liu Yiyi's gaze turns from the empty night sky ahead and lands on Jiang Ye.

She nods, her cold face expressionless, and only responds faintly, "Old Jiang."

Her voice is like her person, clear, but also carrying a chill.

After speaking, she doesn't stop and walks straight past Jiang Ye.

Jiang Ye straightens up, watching the direction she disappears in, no ripples in his cloudy old eyes.

Jiang Ye watched her grow up and knows that this girl has such a dull personality, not that she looks down on people.

"Superior bone structure... Hidden Force cultivation..."

Jiang Ye silently repeats the evaluation he heard from Liu Qingshi's occasional sighs.

This girl is now one of the few inner-court disciples who have broken through the barrier of Hidden Force.

Hidden Force and Bright Force, seemingly only one word apart, are actually the first true watershed on the martial path.

Those with Bright Force can release force outside the body, fierce and external, capable of splitting monuments and cracking stones.

And Hidden Force has already tempered force to be soft, resilient, and long-lasting, capable of penetrating the body to injure internal organs invisibly; the requirements for the control of force and the movement of Qi and blood are more than one level higher.

In this small Anxi County, practicing Hidden Force is enough to hold a position in a security firm or a wealthy family as a guest.

Only then can one be truly considered to have entered the ranks of "experts," respected by others and free from worries about food and clothing.

If it were in the past, Jiang Ye would feel that these were all out of reach.

Now, though...

Jiang Ye smiles faintly and continues to move his steps toward the latrine.